When the debate turns to Omabas State Department and Military efforts, things like this will sink his ship after than anything. The press still has a few journalists who are not afraid of the palace guard.

This was no ordinary rubber chicken affair. That was my reaction to the extraordinary keynoter at Tuesday’s Better Government Association annual luncheon.

Lara Logan, a correspondent for CBS’ “60 Minutes,” delivered a provocative speech to about 1,100 influentials from government, politics, media, and the legal and corporate arenas. Such downtown gatherings are a regular on Chicago’s networking circuit. (I am a member of the BGA’s Civic Leadership Committee, and the Chicago Sun-Times was a sponsor).

Her ominous and frightening message was gleaned from years of covering our wars in the Middle East. She arrived in Chicago on the heels of her Sept. 30 report, “The Longest War.” It examined the Afghanistan conflict and exposed the perils that still confront America, 11 years after 9/11.

Eleven years later, “they” still hate us, now more than ever, Logan told the crowd. The Taliban and al-Qaida have not been vanquished, she added. They’re coming back.

“I chose this subject because, one, I can’t stand, that there is a major lie being propagated . . .” Logan declared in her native South African accent.

The lie is that America’s military might has tamed the Taliban.

“There is this narrative coming out of Washington for the last two years,” Logan said. It is driven in part by “Taliban apologists,” who claim “they are just the poor moderate, gentler, kinder Taliban,” she added sarcastically. “It’s such nonsense!”

Logan stepped way out of the “objective,” journalistic role. The audience was riveted as she told of plowing through reams of documents, and interviewing John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan; Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and a Taliban commander trained by al-Qaida. The Taliban and al-Qaida are teaming up and recruiting new terrorists to do us deadly harm, she reports.

She made a passionate case that our government is downplaying the strength of our enemies in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as a rationale of getting us out of the longest war. We have been lulled into believing that the perils are in the past: “You’re not listening to what the people who are fighting you say about this fight. In your arrogance, you think you write the script.”

Our enemies are writing the story, she suggests, and there’s no happy ending for us.

As a journalist, I was queasy. Reporters should tell the story, not be the story. As an American, I was frightened.

Logan even called for retribution for the recent terrorist killings of Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, and three other officials. The event is a harbinger of our vulnerability, she said. Logan hopes that America will “exact revenge and let the world know that the United States will not be attacked on its own soil. That its ambassadors will not be murdered, and that the United States will not stand by and do nothing about it.”

CBS comes in with the facts on how security requests were turned down by the administration shortly before the terrorists hit....The former head of a Special Forces “Site Security Team” in Libya tells CBS News that in spite of multiple pleas from himself and other U.S. security officials on the ground for “more, not less” security personnel, the State Department removed as many as 34 people from the country in the six months before a terrorist attack in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others.

Lt. Col. Andy Wood will appear this week at a House Oversight Committee hearing that will examine security decisions leading up to the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi.

Speaking to CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson, Wood said when he found out that his own 16-member team and a six-member State Department elite force were being pulled from Tripoli in August – about a month before the assault in Benghazi – he felt, “like we were being asked to play the piano with two fingers. There was concern amongst the entire embassy staff.”

He said other staffers approached him with their concerns when the reduction in security personnel was announced.

“They asked if we were safe,” he told Attkisson. “They asked… what was going to happen, and I could only answer that what we were being told is that they’re working on it – they’ll get us more (security personnel), but I never saw that.”

Wood insists that senior staff in Libya, including Ambassador Stevens, State Department Regional Security Officer Eric Nordstrom, and himself, all wanted and had requested enhanced security.

“We felt we needed more, not less,” he tells Attkisson.

Asked what response their repeated pleas got from the State Department in Washington, Wood says they were simply told “to do with less. For what reasons, I don’t know.”

What happened to her was sickening and very unfortunate. But I don't think we should base our political or military actions on the vengeful desires of a rape victim. GTFO, come home and defend our borders. Let the savages be savages to each other and quit trying to police them. It's a damn waste.

What happened to her was sickening and very unfortunate. But I don't think we should base our political or military actions on the vengeful desires of a rape victim. GTFO, come home and defend our borders. Let the savages be savages to each other and quit trying to police them. It's a damn waste.

1. Is that a gratuitous swipe or would you actually have a different opinion if this report came from someone who hadn't been gang raped by muslims?

2. I think your approach leads to either a police state or much greater success for terrorist attacks on our soil. Either way, it's a loser IMO.

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“The American people are tired of liars and people who pretend to be something they’re not.” - Hillary Clinton

She may well be. Do you think the vast majority of mainstream reporters are invested in their support of Barack Obama or do you think they can find a way to be objective?

I really don't like speaking for a vast majority. I don't think it serves much purpose. They all would/could have separate motives of varying degree that makes them hard to compare. Were any other mainstream reporters raped by Muslims? I might speak for those...

I really don't like speaking for a vast majority. I don't think it serves much purpose. They all would/could have separate motives of varying degree that makes them hard to compare. Were any other mainstream reporters raped by Muslims? I might speak for those...

Isn't it true that under Obama's one term, nearly as many, if not more, senior al Qaeda leaders have been killed compared to both terms of George W. Bush?

Probably. It's a lot easier to allow a policy to continue than it is to make a bold move of your own. Unfortunately, even where Obama has continued Bush policies, he's managed to allow most of the fronts of the GWoT to deteriorate.

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“The American people are tired of liars and people who pretend to be something they’re not.” - Hillary Clinton